


Dog Tags

by Hand_of_the_Alex



Series: Stucky Shorts [6]
Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Happy Ending tho, M/M, dont u worry, im not about the sad ending life, sad at the start
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-23
Updated: 2016-01-23
Packaged: 2018-05-15 20:14:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,648
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5798428
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hand_of_the_Alex/pseuds/Hand_of_the_Alex
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Natasha finds out the reason Steve constantly wears his dog tags and holds on to them as a life line.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dog Tags

Natasha and the rest of the avengers (minus Thor) were checking out what was now the Avengers tower for the first time after the battle of New York. They were all sat around a table and Tony was explaining all about the new rooms in the tower and that they all had their own area for whatever they needed it for.

“So Capsicle, what’s with the dog tags? You do know that we aren’t in a war and you’re technically no longer a solider on account of being declared dead for around 70 years.” Tony asked when he must have saw them dangling over Steve’s overly tight t-shirt that must be hurting his armpits.

“None of your business Tony.” Steve angrily deflected so Tony looked to have decided to back off.

 

“Well somebody woke up on the wrong side of the bed.” Tony simply replied and changed the subject.

* * *

 

“Truth or dare Steve?” Natasha asked, nursing a glass of vodka.

“Truth.” Steve answered.

“Can I take this one pleeeeease?” Tony begged.

“Sure, I know when he’s lying anyway so I can ask him anything whenever.” Natasha explained.

“I am right here you know? And go ahead Tony.” Steve said.

“Why do you wear your dog tags every day even when you’re staying indoors or going for a run?” Tony asked, still wanting the answer.

“Dare.” Steve quickly replied and all the avengers looked at each other, confused.

“No going back now Cap.” Tony decided.

“I’m done with this game.” Steve said and got up and left the room before anyone could say anything.

Tony looked at Natasha expectedly, if anyone knew why, it would be her. She just shrugged which was a rare occurrence, her not knowing something. “Jarvis buddy, does Cap ever take those damn things off?” Tony slurred, his drink finally getting to him.

“No sir, he does not.” Jarvis replied.

* * *

 

The next morning when Natasha walked into the living room Tony was nursing a hangover, the rest of the avengers seem relatively unaffected, well Clint seems rather groggy but he always is in the morning. Natasha was perfectly fine even though she drank much more than most of them and Steve is obviously unaffected and if he wasn’t they wouldn’t know how he was doing considering he hadn’t let his room yet.

“I’m going to talk to him.” Natasha decided.

“Good luck.” Tony wished her, obviously knowing exactly who she was on about.

“Steve?” Natasha said, knocking on the door of the temporary room he was staying at until he got his apartment in DC sorted out.

“Come in,” came the reply from the other side of the door.

“Tony looks like death after drinking so much again, I don’t know why he can’t just handle his liquor like the rest of us?” Natasha said as she walked in to Steve sat on his bed with his closed sketch pad next to him.

“Well I guess not everyone has a super soldier metabolism,” Steve replied.

“So how come you left so early last night?” Natasha cut to it.

“I was tired.” Steve lied.

“You’re a terrible liar Rogers.”

“I don’t have to answer.” He said back defensively, holding the dog tags preciously.

“Okay. You coming in for breakfast?” Natasha asked, leaving whatever Steve didn’t want to say because that was his personal thing and she wouldn’t want anyone to pry on what she didn’t want anyone to know.

“No thanks. I think I’m probably going to sketch for a while.” Steve said, obviously relieved. She decided that would be a good time to leave, so she went back into the living room and shook her head at Tony so that he would know not to pester.

* * *

 

After finding out that the Winter Soldier was Steve’s old best friend and that Pierce was going to kill hundreds of thousands of people because they opposed HYDRA, they knew they had to take it all down. Natasha completely agreed with Steve that to take down HYDRA they would have to take out SHIELD. Steve asked her to help him steal his old uniform from the Smithsonian because he wasn’t as stealthy as her and couldn’t break into somewhere without making too much of a noise. The rest of them were preparing for battle and Fury went to go and find where one of the face masks were for her to pretend to be a council woman were.

She got them in easily as suspected, they went straight to the Captain America exhibit. When they walked in, Natasha went straight to his uniform and expected to see Steve right next to her but instead he was stood in front of the Bucky section. She went to stand next to him and read over the whole thing and saw the video of them smiling and laughing which must have turned on when she put the lights on, she realised that she’d never seen him smile that widely in the whole time that she had known him.

“So this was who the winter soldier was.” Natasha finally spoke.

“Bucky. We’ve known each other our whole lives almost, never apart for too long.” He explained, fondling the dog tags which were hanging out of his t-shirt. “When you and Tony asked about these,” he started, gesturing to the dog tags. “I didn’t want to answer because it hadn’t even been a year since Bucky died for me, it was still too sore to talk about and now seeing as who we’re about to fight, I might as well.” He said and took the dog tags off and Natasha observed that they also had a dirty silver ring attached too.

Steve turned them over and she saw that they weren’t even his dog tags, they were Sergeant James Barnes’, they were Bucky’s. “Me and Bucky weren’t just friends like the history books say, we were much more than that.” He explained and then held the ring up.

“You were married.” Natasha caught on.

“Well it wasn’t legal at the time but yeah we were in all the other ways of it. It happened one night when the Commandos were very drunk and saying how we should get married so that we weren’t living a life of sin. You see, they had found out one morning when they were going to prank Bucky but found the both of us asleep in the nude in his bed. So we got married one night, Gabe was the priest even though he wasn’t much for religion, and the rest of them were the witnesses. We exchanged dog tags because we had no rings at the time.” Steve continued with the story.

“We were given these rings by a family that were happy that we had liberated their town from HYDRA and had nothing else to give us, however much we persisted that we didn’t want anything from them, I guess they came in quite handy at the time seeing that we were married without rings.

“We never told a soul and the whole world kept thinking that I was sweet on Peggy, she knew obviously, she knew everything. So when Bucky died, I hadn’t just lost my best friend, I had lost my soulmate. So I wear his dog tags and my ring every day because he is it for me. And now I’m gonna help him remember.” Steve finished.

“Thanks for telling me that, I’ll make sure Pierce suffers more for what he has done to your husband.” Natasha decided.

“Now, let’s get my suit, this is the last thing he saw me in and he sure did like me in a uniform.” Steve said with a fond smile on his face.

* * *

 

“Sergeant Barnes, here are all of your belongings that we could find.” A SHIELD agent said after a raid of a HYDRA base, and gave Bucky a box of things and he rummaged through them.

“Where are my dog tags?” Bucky asked.

“I’m sorry but we only found Captain Rogers’ dog tags with a ring attached.” The obviously flustered agent said.

“They’re mine don’t worry.” Bucky said and Natasha nodded at the agent to confirm what he was saying.

“O-Okay here you go.” The agent stuttered and handed the dog tags over.

“Thanks,” Natasha said on his behalf and the agent left the room just at the same time as Tony and Steve walked in.

“Oh God, is this some old man thing? That you have to wear your dog tags even after the war.” Tony whined when Bucky put them on.

“You never told him?” Bucky asked with a smirk on his face.

“I only told Nat.” Steve replied and Bucky looked over to her and then back to Tony.

“Told me what?” Tony finally asked, hating to feel left out of anything.

“Well me and Steve swapped dog tags when we got married because it was the war and we had no rings.” Bucky condensed it.

“Married?” Tony spluttered.

“Sure are.” Bucky happily said and to confirm it further he walked over to Steve and kissed him. “Since 1944.”

“What about Carter?” Tony asked, obviously thinking over everything he had ever been told about their history.

“She knew, smartest dame I’d ever met. She was a cover really.” Bucky explained.

“I need to sit down.” Tony mumbled and sat on one of the massive couches.

“Now I don’t have to worry about people thinking you’re available,” Steve said as he looked over Bucky.

“I’m a one guy kinda guy.” Bucky said with a smile and tucked the dog tags which also had a ring identical to the one on Steve’s set, on.

Natasha went to sit next to Tony on the couch as Steve and Bucky left the room. Tony looked as if he was questioning his whole life so Nat just laughed at him. “You’re the one who wanted to know.”

**Author's Note:**

> Hope this isn't terrible! Please comment as it makes me very happy.
> 
> Find me on Tumblr: yourrbuckyy.tumblr.com


End file.
